Taking on the To-Do List

Hi friends.

I had this exceptionally insane six days in a row where my to-do list was bonkers and even though I needed to just clear my head and write and be creative, my tasks were just always hovering on the horizon no matter what I did. Not necessarily mentally, like I’m pretty good at shutting out the noise, but in fact literally, as in the phone kept ringing and I had appointments in unexpected and unusual ways, and I found it frustrating because I was like (in my head, because who would say this stuff out loud?), do you not realize I need to make my art, and they…did not. Because we are the only ones who truly care, but that’s fine, because we really fucking care.

And yes, I was setting the alarm to get up earlier, and I was working longer days to make sure I could get done what I needed to get done, and I was feeling glad that I had made that decision, like I was in it, I was in the zone no matter what, and then yesterday morning I woke up and my body and my brain were like, you are done, my lady. You must stop. Even though that to-do list remained.

So I didn’t write one word and I didn’t check off one item from my list and instead I went to yoga and then I made soup in the afternoon (the Alison Roman spicy bean one), and I thought deeply about how wild it is that cutting an onion can make you cry, like how fragile and weird and tender is that? And how powerful. Man, onions are one powerful vegetable. And I am sorry that this is not literary in the slightest—and not even the point of this letter! (OR IS IT)—but this is my truth. Sometimes you just need to think about vegetables for a while.

Anyway then I woke up today, brain and body ready to write, the words felt like they were back, but so was that to-do list.